On this day. 1923: Just two years into his presidency, Warren Harding died. He was the 29th president, serving between 1921-23. It was rumored — but never proven — that Harding was poisoned by his wife, who was sick of his affairs with other women. But infidelity was just one of Harding’s many problems. He also had a gambling problem and lost some of the White House china in a poker game. Harding’s administration was perhaps the most corrupt; the Teapot Dome scandal was the most notorious in U.S. history, until Watergate.

On this day. 1939: President Franklin Roosevelt was warned by the prominent physicist Albert Einstein that Nazi Germany was trying to develop an atomic bomb — and so should the United States. Roosevelt, worried by Einstein’s warning, later began the "Manhattan Project," the crash effort to build the bomb during World War II.

Quote of the day

"Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little." -Warren Harding